"But not to me--oh, not to me, my sister!"
"Sister!" she repeated, with flashing eyes, and then crossed herself humbly, muttering, "The evil spirit must not rise again. Help me, Blessed Mother--good saints, help me!"
She told her rosary over once, twice, and then turned to Olive, subdued.
"Now say what you have to say to me. I told you I had no anger in my heart--I even asked your forgiveness. I only desire to be left alone--to spend the rest of my bitter life in penance and prayer."
"But I cannot leave you, my sister."
"I wish you would not call me so, nor take my hand, nor look at me as you do now--as you did the first night I saw you, and again on that awful, awful day!" And Christal sank back on one of the little beds--the thornless pillow where some happy child slept--and there sobbed bitterly.
More than once she motioned Olive away, but Olive would not go. "Do not send me away! If you knew how I suffer daily from the thought of you!"
"You suffer! happy as they tell me you are--you, with your home and your husband!"
"Ah, Christal, even my husband grieves--my husband, who would do anything in the whole world for your peace. You have forgotten Harold."
A softness came over Christal's face. "No, I have not forgotten him. Day and night I pray for him who saved more than my life--my soul. For that deed may God bless him!--and God pardon me."
She said this, shuddering, too, as at some awful memory. After a while, she spoke to Olive in a gentler tone, for the first time lifting her eyes to her sister's face.
"You seem well in health, and you have a peaceful look. I am glad of it--I am glad you are happy, and married to Harold Gwynne. He told me of his love for you."
"But he could not tell you all. If I am happy, I have suffered too. We must all suffer, some time; but suffering ends in time."
"Not with me--not with me. But I desire not to talk of myself."
"Shall I talk then about your friend Harold--your _brother_? He told me to say he would ever be so to you," said Olive, striving to awaken Christal's sympathies. And she partly succeeded; for her sister listened quietly, and with some show of interest, while she spoke of Harold and of their dear home.
"It is so near you, too; we can hear the convent bells when we walk in our pretty garden. You must come and see it, Christal."
"No, no; I have rest here; I will never go beyond these walls. As soon as I am twenty-one I shall become a nun, and then I, with all my sorrows, will be buried out of sight for evermore."
So said she; and Olive did not contradict her at the time. But she thought that if there was any strength in faithful affection and earnest prayers, the peace of a useful life, spent, not in barren solitude, but in the fruitful garden of God's world, should be Christal's portion yet.
One only doubt troubled her. After considering for a long time she ventured to say:
"I have told you now nearly all that has happened among us this year.
You have spoken of all your friends, save one." She hesitated, and at last uttered the name of Lyle.
"Hush!" said Christal. But her cheek's paleness changed not; her heavy eye neither kindled nor drooped. "Hush! I do not wish to hear that name.
It has passed out of my world for ever--blotted out by the horrors that followed."
"Then you have forgotten"----
"Forgotten all. It was but a dream of my old vain life--it troubles me no more."
"Thank God!" murmured Olive, though in her heart she marvelled to think how many false reflections there were of the one true love--the only love that can endure--such as had been hers.
She bade an affectionate farewell to her sister, who went with her to the outer court of the convent. Christal did not ask her to come again, but she kissed her when they parted, and once looked back ere she again passed into the quiet silent home which she had chosen as her spirit's grave.
Olive walked on quickly, for the afternoon was closing.
Very soon she heard overtaking her a footstep, whose sound quickened her pulse even now. "How good and thoughtful of him, my dear Harold--my husband!"
_My husband!_ Never did she say or think the words but her heart swelled with inexpressible emotion, remembering the old time, the long silent struggle, the wasting pain. Yet she would have borne it all a thousand times--ay, even had the end come never in her life on earth,--rather than not have known the sweetness of loving--the glory of loving one like him.
Harold met her with a smile. "I have been waiting long--I could not let my little Olive walk home alone."
She, who had walked through the world alone for so many weary years! But she would never do so any more. She clung to her husband's arm, clasping over it both her little hands in a sweet caressing way: and so they went on together.
Olive told him all the good news she had to tell, and he rejoiced with her for Christal's sake. He agreed that there was hope and comfort for their sister still; for he could not believe there was in the whole world a heart so hard and cold, that it could not be melted by Olive's gentle influence, and warmed by the shining of Olive's spirit of love.
They were going home, when she saw that her husband looked tired and dull--he had been poring over his books all day. For though now independent of the world, as regarded fortune, he could not relinquish his scientific pursuits; but was every day adding to his acquirements, and to the fame which had been his when only a poor clergyman at Harbury. So, without saying anything, Olive led him down the winding road that leads from Edinburgh towards the Braid Hills, laughing and talking with him the while, "to send the cobwebs out of his brain,"
as she often told him. Though at the time she never let him see how skilfully she did this, lest his man's dignity should revolt at being so lovingly beguiled. For he was still as ever the very quintessence of pride. Well for him his wife had not that quality--yet perhaps she loved him all the better for possessing it.
At the gate of the Hermitage Harold paused. Neither of them had seen the place since they last stood there. At the remembrance he seemed greatly moved.
His wife looked lovingly up to him. "Harold, are you content? You would not send me from you?--you would not wish to live your whole life without me now?"
"No--no!" he cried, pressing her hand close to his heart. The mute gesture said enough--Olive desired no more.
They walked on a long way, even climbing to the summit of the Braid Hills. The night was coming on fast,--the stormy night of early winter--for the wind had risen, and swept howling over the heathery ridge.
"But I have my plaid here, and you will not mind the cold, my lassie--Scottish born," said Harold to his wife. And in his own cheek, now brown with health, rose the fresh mountain-blood, while the bold mountain-spirit shone in his fearless eyes. No marvel that Olive looked with pride at her husband, and thought that not in the whole world was there such another man!
"I glory in the wind," cried Harold, tossing back his head, and shaking his wavy hair, something lion-like. "It makes me strong and bold. I love to meet it, to wrestle with it; to feel myself in spirit and in frame, stern to resist, daring to achieve, as a man should feel!"
And on her part, Olive with her clinging sweetness, her upward gaze, was a type of true woman.
"I think," Harold continued, "that there is a full rich life before me yet. I will go forth and rejoice therein; and if misfortune come, I will meet it--thus!"
He planted his foot firmly on the ground, lifted his proud head, and looked out fearlessly with his majestic eyes.
"And I," said Olive, "thus."
She stole her two little cold hands under his plaid, laid her head upon them, close to his heart, and, smiling, nestled there.
And the loud fierce wind swept by, but it harmed not them, thus warm and safe in love. So they stood, true man and woman, husband and wife, ready to go through the world without fear, trusting in each other, and looking up to Heaven to guide their way.
THE END.